DWM vs Xmonad - Which is Better?

Today, in this horribly long video, I talk about xmonad vs dwm. In the first part, I go through the technical similarities and differences. Then in the second part, I talk about my thoughts on these two popular tiling window managers.
Note: I know the fetch in my terminal during the xmonad portions of this video say dwm, that's because fm6000 requires you to set that variable manually, it doesn't grab it itself. So dwm is just what it always says, no matter what wm I'm using.
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Videos on DWM
• Creating a DWM Auto-Ri...
• How to Install DWM on ...
• How to Rice DWM
Videos on Xmonad
• Getting Started wtih X...
• Getting Started With X...
• Switching to Xmonad - ...
• I'm Breaking Up With X...
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Time Stamps
0:00 Intro
3:23 DWM Technical Details
8:40 Xmonad Technical Details
16:16 DWM Review/Opinions
24:39 Xmonad Review/Opinions
34:00 Conclusions
#xmonad #dwm #windowmanagers

[@TheLinuxCast]

Note: I know the fetch in my terminal during the xmonad portions of this video say dwm, that's because fm6000 requires you to set that variable manually, it doesn't grab it itself. So dwm is just what it always says, no matter what wm I'm using.

[@liftlinux9421]

No problem

[@fahimabrar2922]

I started my window manager journey with dwm. I was learning C as it was necessary for my semester, haven't found any reason to make a switch, probably won't. Helped me to learn C, a lot.

[@uidx-bob]

I love your real and down to earth takes on these things. Keep it going!

[@Andrath]

The master stack layout is where new windows are spawned in as the master, because it's assumed that the window you start new is the one that requires the most attention.

[@MaazAhmed]

The problem with xmonad is that you need to dig through the documentation and do a lot of tinkering to get it working according to your needs. Although dwm requires patching, it's a much easier way to add or modify functionality, especially for someone who doesn't know the programming language they're working with.

[@MNucky]

with XMonad.Hooks.InsertPosition, you can spawn the windows like the attachaside/bottom/below patches in dwm

[@rodrigoduran2394]

Really good video! Keep it up!

[@teohz]

I've used dwm for the longest time once I switched from i3. Then few months ago tried xmonad and enjoyed it quite a bit. Patching dwm can be time consuming (when you have a more than 'few' pathes). Now I'm actually thinking of switching back to dwm for 1 simple reason - it just works once you set it up. As you basically compile it and run once happy. Then, with xmonad I already had it break on me 2-3 times during system update, which requires troubleshooting. Never had a similar issue with dwm - as it just sits there as you left it.

[@IvanMalison]

Honestly, a lot of your criticisms of XMonad are quite unfair. w.r.t. where windows are positioned, this is something that can be configured to be literally whatever you want. w.r.t. named scratch pad, this is likely because you are not properly setting/identifying the ewmh window class/title of the window, so xmonad does not have a way to identify that your window is the right type of scratchpad. XMonad's configuration is honestly just far more powerful than dwms.

[@BrucesWorldofStuff]

First off, Congrats on the 3K... :-) Yes I watched to the end... :-D I use SpectrWm & LeftWm as you know with Model-M keyboard (No Windows Key)... I have tried DWM a bit with DT's setup but the keybindings suck for me as I have to rewrite everything so it will work. It is doable I'm just lazy... Lol The thing is I'm happy with what I have... :-) I think Xmonad will be a no for now... I'm going to give DWM another shot but from scratch soon, I found out how to remap my CapsLock key to be a windows key so the adventure will begin soon... lol Every Wm I look at relies on the Windows Key, I get it but it sucks at the same time... Thanks for the video! LLAP

[@mikel8190]

I would love to see a video of your thoughts on spectrwm.

[@henninb]

With regards to xmonad scratch pad issues. Verify the className is correct. Some Linux distros can yield different names. xprop is the Linux tool to verify the className. Once you have it correct your scratch pad issue should be resolved.

[@umka7536]

Alacritty allows to set particular name. "-t" option. I launch mine "alacritty -t scratch-term" and then it keeps this class name.

[@BeansEnjoyer911]

I think in terms of support it kinda boils down to this Most Linux users code. Most coders learned coding from Java, cpp, c, python, JavaScript, etc. Aka. They learned programming from procedural and often OOP languages. Suckless and many other devs assume that people are familiar enough with a C based language to just "figure it out" Us over here on the Haskell side understand that we are in a completely different framework of even programming. So just the fact that someone is wanting to use our product.. we are wanting to be inviting, because we are already the underdog in a way. I LOVE Haskell... But none of my coworkers will let me evangelize. They like what they know. And that's fine

[@f.geijer8882]

Interesting. What do you use Haskell for if i might ask?

[@BeansEnjoyer911]

@@f.geijer8882 I write Haskell professionally. Can’t give a lot of details, but there are at least a few US based companies that use Haskell for their backend. EDIT. 7 months ago I didn’t write Haskell professionally. Before I wrote most small file manipulation tools in Haskell. Mini programs to help myself out. Like bulk copying, bulk renaming, etc.

[@rayt.7128]

Good video

[@ShrewT34]

It's just the default config that XMonad has 9 workspaces named "1", "2", "3", etc, but you can configure XMonad to have an arbitrary number of arbitrarily named workspaces (i.e. "www", "media", "scratch", etc). You can even create them on the fly with XMonad.Actions.DynamicWorkspaces. My rice of XMonad has one workspace for every typeable alpha-numeric character on my keyboard (including multibyte characters!), which, as I use an international layout, is a lot. so if i type ß, it'll create a workspace named "ß" and goto it. My convention is "w" has work stuff, "c" has my browser, "s" has Spotify/Media, "t" has scratch terminals, etc. So if you like having a ton of workspaces, I'm afraid XMonad can destroy the competition in that regard. Though it does look like DWM can have as many as 32 tags, but I'm no DWM expert.

[@richardg8584]

Thanks for this - I'll stick with dwm! I like the fact that the unpatched version of dwm is only about 2000 lines so you stand a chance of understanding the whole thing. Furthermore it's 2000 lines of C ....

[@Danielddiniz]

Hi @The Linux Cast, the point of suckless and dwm is not having a bloated software. You said you have all layouts patched by uses only the master & stack. What’s the point to have everything on? Isn’t Minimalism better?

[@TheLinuxCast]

Those cane with one of the patches. And I use more of them now.

[@thedanmethenyshow.6004]

DWM for life brother! I like window managers but I'm starting to be neutral with it all lol.

[@xseman]

patching can be simple just use git, make branch from master per every patch then merge them gradually to one branch, then it's easy to resolve conflicts.

[@BlahBlah-cn5qe]

Jesus Christ what is that colorscheme and wall? It looks so good

[@TheLinuxCast]

It's called Material Ocean. The dwm version is still on my GitHub

[@Neucher]

Have you asked the devs about the window spawning location in xmoad ? Pretty sure there is a way to change it. Also regarding the scratchpad issue have you tried changing to a different terminal emulator? That's probably something the devs will ask you too.

[@TheLinuxCast]

I did change to a different terminal, and had the same problems. As for the window spawning, apparently it's handled by a haskel library.

[@Neucher]

@@TheLinuxCast I guess that only happens when the scratchpad is not in focus (when you move the mouse to a different window) ? I don't have this issue but I only use one scratchpad.

[@TheLinuxCast]

@@Neucher Nope, even happens when it's in focus. It's odd.

[@Neucher]

@@TheLinuxCast you could try to disable all but one and then just activate one of DT's scratchpads. If that works then just use that one as a base. DT's has to work otherwise there would be issues on his gitlab. Like I know this isn't the best way to learn xmonad but it has solved every issue for me at least till now. Still find it less of a hassle then having to manage 15 dwm patches. That's the least you need to replicate a basic xmonad config in dwm.

[@drishalballaney6590]

why did you not do dwm vs xmoand vs qtile ?

[@TheLinuxCast]

Because the video would have been an hour and a half long. This one was long enough.

[@drishalballaney6590]

@@TheLinuxCast but tbh nothing can beat the qtile ease of use

[@drishalballaney6590]

also one more thing, xmoand and qtile are clones of dwm :D

[@jorgegarreton9460]

I absolutly never ask a question to people in forums cause their answer is always RTFM..so I use mentors like the linux cast, ermanno ferrari, antonio sarosi , distrotube., OTB,..and Erick Dubois.....I use Antonio Sarosi setups for most of my working setups..so to me Xmonad/Xmobar ,dwm,qtile,i3, spdwm, are very friendly and and thereis not much difference in functionality..

[@ahmadshahzad3382]

I am pretty sure I can get almost all the patches working in dwm as long as I don't use status2d, barpadding, and alpha in the same build. These patches are the ones that give me the most trouble and I am not smort enough to get diz werkin

[@TheLinuxCast]

Yeah, the bar patches are always the ones that mess me up too. The bad part is the two that I want to add are both bar patches.

[@ahmadshahzad3382]

@@TheLinuxCast which ones are you looking to add? And what are the ones you are already using? I might have patched those.

[@anantgupta7916]

BSPWM or Awesome I either boot in one of these

[@michaelhansen6895]

both

[@abstractapproach634]

DWM 4 the win

[@scruper]

Спасибо из России. Thanks from Russia :)

[@liftlinux9421]

BSPWM or Qtile Daily driver is BSPWM:)

[@michaelhansen6895]

bspwm

[@joanmilev6156]

in order to understand something you have to have an idea of what you are trying to do

[@ironmanlifts]

Been using DWM for a while more than likley gonna stay on it. The thing about Xmonad it has tabs lol pullGroup, dwm tabbed needs xembed apps which are limited. Ok now seriously, xmonad ya it's hard to configure but once you got it configured the sky is the limit. No patching, if DWM had the same build as xmonad it would beat it by a mile.

[@michaelhansen6895]

100% Xmonad and i am not saying xmonad is better than dwm

[@newsofthenerd]

I also use xmonad and I have out of luck and time hacked on it. However haskell is a nightmare language. When I go through haskell courses and the collage professors who are experts on the language can not explain simple concepts in haskell you realise they don't understand it themselves. The language is set up to be extremely confusing with very poor syntax. And the bizarre idea of replacing loops with recursion that infact is not actually real recursion but is implemented as a simple loop in the back end. Meaning haskell is actually using loops not recursion but is making programmer white make believe recursion. The whole thing is meant to be confusing on purpose. And I have yet to see any professors explain monads it a simple concise way. It should be a simple explanation but what you get it oh, they don't actually know.

[@folksurvival]

Oof you decided to participate in the experimental drug trials.

[@drumpf4all]

I couldn't finish this video on my phone. I was watching it and adverts kept popping up. So annoying. I'm not against ads to support the channel but shit bro.

[@TheLinuxCast]

That's odd because mid roll ads should be disabled. Bit KZbin often does its own thing. So sorry about that.

[@drumpf4all]

@@TheLinuxCast that's cool. I'm not mad at you. I mean an ad or two is cool but yt needs to fri k it up all the time.

[@francoisdupont3082]

i3 is just better than especially dwm. The notion that you’re somehow graduating to more cumbersome program is mimetic desire at work. This thought never occurred to anyone independently. Anyone setting at a computer for hours configuring window managers, while they could learn a programming language, is failing at life.

[@TheLinuxCast]

Totally disagree. I've learned as much C, Lua, and Haskell configuring Window Managers than I have anywhere else. It's real world experience that has got me interested in other things.

[@heroe1486]

Complete nonsense, with that state of mind you're better of using ootb windows/Macos or Ubuntu because they "just work" and don't use any minimal tiling windows manager which all require configuration anyway. Configuring your twm is just investing time that you'd gain after, and for non programmers ( even for devs, who actually use Haskell on a daily basis ? ) that's also a way to introduce them to programming languages and learn in the same time. Donc calme toi mon petit François, tu m'as l'air bien frustré.

[@francoisdupont3082]

@@heroe1486 For someone like you, who has no responsibility other than fitting in, your logic makes perfect sense. But there are some professional software engineers out there who use tiling window managers because it actually saves them time.

[@nevoyu]

The best support for dwm comes from /r/suckless on reddit